Old Jim had two South African medals, a D.C.M. and a D.S.O.
“The Staff,” he went on, with the greatest contempt he could put into his voice. “I saw three of them in a car to-day. I stood to attention: saluted. A young fellow waved his hand, you know; graciously accepted my salute, you know, and passed on leaning back in his limousin. The ‘Brains of the British Army,’ I thought. Pah!”
We waited. Jim on the Staff was the greatest entertainment the battalion could offer. We tried to draw him out further, but he would not be drawn. We tried cunningly, by indirect methods, enquiring his views on whether there would be a push this year.
“Push!” he said. “Of course there will be a push. The Staff must have something to show for themselves. ‘Shove ’em in,’ they say; ‘rather a bigger front than last time.’ Strategy? Oh, no! That’s out of date, you know. Five-mile front—frontal attack. Get a few hundred thousand mown down, and then discover the Boche has got a second line. The Staff. Pah!!” And no more would he say.
Then Clark came in, and the Manchester Stokes gun officer. Clark immediately joined Owen in a duet on “Florrie.” Then we went through the whole gamut of popular songs, with appropriate actions and stamping of feet upon the floor. Meanwhile the table was cleared, only the whiskey and Perrier remaining. Soon there were cries of “Napoleon—Napoleon,” and Owen, who bears a remarkable resemblance to that great personage, posed tragically again and again amid great applause. And then, in natural sequence, I, as “Bill, the man wot won the Battle of Waterloo,” attacked him with every species of trench-mortar I could lay hands on, my head swathed in a remarkable turban of Daily Mail. At last I drove him into a corner behind a table, and bombarded him relentlessly with oranges until he capitulated! All the time Edwards had been in fear and trembling for the safety of his gramophone.
At length peace was signed, and we grew quiet again beneath the soothing strains of the gramophone, until at last Jim Potter said he must really go. Everyone reminding everyone else that breakfast was at seven, we broke up the party, and Owen, Paul, Jim Potter and I departed together. But anyone who knows the psychology of conviviality will understand that we had first to pay a visit to a neighbouring Mess for one last whiskey-and-soda before turning in.
As I opened the door of my billet, I heard a “strafe” getting up. There was a lively cannonade up in the line; for several minutes I listened, until it diminished a little, and began to die away. “In” to-morrow, I thought. My valise was laid out on the floor, and my trench kit all ready for packing first thing next morning. I lost no time in getting into bed. And yet I could not sleep.
I could not help thinking of the jollity of the last few hours, the humour, the apparently spontaneous outburst of good spirits; and most of all I thought of old Jim, the mainspring somehow of it all. And again I saw the picture of the concert a few nights ago, the bright lights of the stage, the crowds of our fellows, all their bodies and spirits for the moment relaxed, good-natured, happy, as they stood laughing in the warm night air. And lastly I thought again of Private Benjamin, that refined eager face, that rather delicate body, and that warm hand as I placed mine over his, squeezing the trigger. He was no more than a child really, a simple-minded child of Wales. Somehow it was more terrible that these young boys should see this war, than for the older men. Yet were we not all children wondering, wondering, wondering?... Yes, we were like children faced by a wild beast. “Sometimes I dislike you almost,” I thought; “your dulness, your coarseness, your lack of romance, your unattractiveness. Yet that is only physical. You, I love really. Oh, the dear, dear world!”
And in the darkness I buried my face in the pillow, and sobbed.